TARGA HAWKES BAY 2018
In a third and final day of high drama, Steven Kirk-burnnand and Mike Hay (BMW 318ti) were gifted the win in this year’s Targa Hawke's Bay tarmac motor rally.
Heading into the final 37.34km Argyle Road / Raukawa Road stage on the way back to the finish line of the new-for-2018 three-day Taupo–to–havelock North event on Sunday, 20 May, Dunedin Porsche GT3 RS pair Martin Dippie and Jona Grant enjoyed a three-minute and 20.7-second lead over Auckland pair Kirk-burnnand and Hay and looked to be certain winners.
For the first two days, Nic De Waal and Shane Reynolds had set the pace. But, when the engine in De Waal’s Subaru Impreza WRX cried enough early on the final day, early event rivals Dippie and Grant assumed a lead on the isolated Motere Road stage east of Waipukurau, and it looked like they would never lose.
For their part, Kirk-burnnand and Hay brought both speed and consistency to the event, and though they only won one stage outright, they were in the right place at the right time when Dippie ran off the road in the final stage.
To their credit, Dippie and Grant still had enough of a time buffer to end up second overall and retain their Class 6 (2WD) lead, despite earning a maximum stage time for the final ill-fated run through Argyll and Raukawa Roads.
Dippie and Grant were by no means the only high-profile pair to sample the scenery either. Earlier on the final day, top local pair Ivan Knauf and Trevor Corbin (Subaru Impreza WRX) crashed out of fourth place on the very first stage from Waimarama back to Havelock North, while, later on, Tauranga pair Simon and Sita Clark (BMW M3) lost what looked like a sure spot in the top six with a similar car-bending / eventending off in the fourth stage.
One of the pre-event favourites, Aucklandbased Mitsubishi Evo IX pair Jason Gill and Duncan Robinson, didn’t even make it that far, their event ending with a roll on Saturday.
In fact, the make-up of the final top 10
bore little resemblance to that at the end of the first and second days.
Though they were out of overall contention after various mechanical issues on the first and second days of the event, Targa event stalwart Clark Proctor and co-driver Sue O’neill ended up winning most of the final day’s stages in Proctor’s Nissan R35 GT-R. As they had lost so much time on the first two days, they were never in overall contention (eventually finishing 37th outright), but Proctor was the quickest through the last five stages to tie with Dippie and Grant for the second-highest number of stage wins behind De Waal and Reynolds.
Back to the final top 10 though, and third overall after one of their best — and definitely most consistently quick — Targa events were Perth-based expat Robert Darrington and his co-driver David Abetz in Darrington’s supercharged BMW M3. Fourth, meanwhile, were another BMW pair, this time Targa event returnee Mike Tubbs and co-driver Mike Vincent, both from Hamilton, the pair enjoying an almost-perfect debut run in Tubbs’s new BMW M2 coupé.
With the demise of the Gill/robinson Mitsubishi Evo IX on Saturday, and both the De Waal/reynolds and Knauf/corbin Subarus on the final day, Auckland pair David Rogers and Aidan Kelly were first 4WD entrants home (and Class 10 winners) in fifth place in Rogers’ Mitsubishi Evo X, 2.5 minutes ahead of the Class 9 (Production 4Wd)–winning Subaru Impreza WRX of Christchurch ace Rory Callaway, who had his dad Stewart reading the notes.
Though they were out of overall top-10 contention thanks to issues earlier in the event, rally veteran Brian Green and co-driver Fleur Pedersen spent the day swapping fastest 4WD times with Mitsubishi mates Rogers and Kelly, their undoubted highlights setting the thirdquickest times through both the Umutaoroa and Ashley Clinton stages on the way back to the Bay.
Arguably the best drive from a Targa event rookie came from Auckland Toyota dealer Haydn Mckenzie, who, with mate Matthew Sayers on co-driver duty, finished seventh overall and won Class 4 on debut in Mckenzie’s Toyota 86.
The Classic class has always been a happy hunting ground for Targa event stalwarts Mark and his father Chris Kirk-burnnand (BMW M3) from Wellington, and this year’s Hawke’s Bay event again saw them come out on top.
But not before their own share of day-three drama. The problem was a broken throttle cable, jury-rigged through the passenger side window to get them to service for a proper repair. Class rivals Mark Mccaughan and Lindsay Lyons (Mercedes-benz 190E 2.3-16) were able to catch and briefly take the class lead while Mark and Chris sorted it out at the lunchtime service at Waipukurau. And, once the throttle cable was fixed, normal service
resumed, with the Kirk-burnnands re-taking the class lead and ending up 10th overall.
There’s always a great depth and diversity in every Targa event, represented in Hawke’s Bay by the entry of Glen and son Kurtis Raymond in the (very loosely) single-wheel-base Land Rover– based Bowler Tomcat that Glen usually uses in Off Road Association of New Zealand (ORANZ) events. The pair made an immediate impression with the Tomcat’s wild, howling V8 engine and extravagant lean angles and ended up thoroughly enjoying the adventure.
The Hawke’s Bay event also attracted another close-to-50-car entry in the associated-but-non-competitive Targa Tour.
With the first major event on the 2018 Targa calendar now done and dusted, the focus for officials, competitors, and volunteers alike now turns to the six-day South Island 2018 Targa New Zealand event, starting in Invercargill on Tuesday, 23 October and ending in Queenstown on Sunday, 28 October.
As well as the existing competition and Targa Tour categories, this year’s event will see a new one — a time trial for owners of vintage cars.
A month later, event director Peter Martin and staff and volunteers from the Ultimate Rally Group will be back in the North Island running the eight-day, biennial Silver Fern international gravel rally from Hamilton, on Saturday, 24 November, via New Plymouth, Ohakune, Palmerston North, Havelock North, and Gisborne, to Rotorua a week later.
Targa New Zealand events are organized by the Ultimate Rally Group with the support of sponsors Andrewsimms.co.nz, Chicane Racewear, Global Security, HW Richardson Group, Invercargill Licensing Trust, New Zealand Classic Car, Race Brakes, Race 4 Life Trust, Racetech, Teamtalk, Trackit, and Writeraze.
For more information, go to targa.co.nz or check out the Targa NZ page on Facebook.